Field of Endeavor
The present invention relates to removal of substances from fluids or mixtures and more particularly to removal of a target substance from a fluid or mixture.
State of Technology
The article “carbon Dioxide into the Briny Deep” in the October 2010 issue of Science and Technology Review provides the state of technology information reproduced below.
WITH every passing year, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere increases. Because of the way this gas absorbs and emits infrared radiation, excessive quantities can cause the warming of Earth's atmosphere. Natural sources of atmospheric CO2 such as volcanic outgassing, the combustion of organic matter, and the respiration processes of living aerobic organisms are nearly balanced by physical and biological processes that remove the gas from the atmosphere. For example, some CO2 dissolves in seawater, and plants remove some by photosynthesis.
However, problems arise with the increased amounts of CO2 from human activities, such as burning fossil fuels for heating, power generation, and transport as well as some industrial processes. Natural processes are too slow to remove these anthropogenic amounts from the atmosphere. In 2008, 8.67 gigatons of carbon (31.8 gigatons of CO2) were released worldwide from burning fossil fuels, compared with 6.14 gigatons in 1990.
The present level of atmospheric CO2 is higher than at any time during the last 800,000 years and likely is higher than it has been in the last 20 million years. Researchers around the world are exploring ways to dispose of this excess. One proposed approach, called carbon capture and sequestration, is to store CO2 by injecting it deep into the ocean or into rock formations far underground. The G8, an informal group of economic powers including the U.S., has endorsed efforts to demonstrate carbon capture and sequestration. The international forum recommended that work begin on at least 20 industrial-scale CO2 sequestration projects, with the goal of broadly deploying the technology by 2020.
Several carbon sequestration projects are already under way. One, under the North Sea, is part of an oil drilling operation that separates CO2 from natural gas and traps it in undersea rock formations. Other projects are using sequestered CO2 to push oil around underground so that drillers can maximize the quantity of crude oil they remove—a process called enhanced oil recovery.
An alternative approach, being pursued by researchers at Lawrence Livermore and the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, involves putting CO2 back into the ground while simultaneously producing freshwater. According to Livermore geochemist Roger Aines, who leads the Laboratory's work on this project, vast underground sandstone formations are filled with very salty water, many times saltier than the ocean. The idea is to pump CO2 into these rock formations, thereby pushing briny water up into a reverse-osmosis water-treatment plant where most of the salt can be removed. The result is to increase volume for storing CO2 in the underground formation while producing freshwater aboveground.
Although this water might be too salty to drink, it would provide a critical resource for industrial processes that require huge quantities of freshwater. Petroleum refining, for example, consumes 1 to 2 billion gallons of water per day. Even technologies designed to reduce greenhouse gases, such as the biofuels production process, are increasing demands on the world's water resources.
United States Published Patent Application No. 2007/0169625 by Roger D. Aines and William L. Bourcier for a carbon ion pump for removal of carbon dioxide from combustion gas and other gas mixtures provides the state of technology information described below.                Carbon dioxide makes up from 5% (modern gas-fired plants) to 19% (modern coal plants) of the flue gas from a power plant. The remainder is mostly nitrogen, unused oxygen, and oxides of nitrogen and sulfur (which are strong greenhouse gases in addition to contributing to poor quality). A major limitation to reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the expense of stripping carbon dioxide from other combustion gases. Without a cost-effective means of accomplishing this, the worlds hydrocarbon resources, if used, will continue to contribute carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.        
The disclosure of United States Published Patent Application No. 2007/0169625 is incorporated herein in its entirety for all purposes.
United States Published Patent Application No. 2007/0170060 by William L. Bourcier, Roger D. Aines, Jeffery, J. Haslam, Charlene, M. Schaldach, Kevin, C. O'Brien, and Edward Cussler for a deionization and desalination using electrostatic ion pumping provides the state of technology information described below.                The present invention provides for a method and system (e.g., a desalination system and method) that utilizes synchronized externally applied electrostatic fields in conjunction with an oscillating fluid flow to immobilize and separate ions from fluids. While salt ion removal from water is a preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that other ions can also be beneficially removed from fluids, as disclosed herein by the apparatus/systems and methods of the present invention. The ion pump separates any non-ionic liquid, from ionic impurities contained within that liquid. The present invention may therefore be used to purify either the liquid, as in the case of water, or the salts. One outlet stream has liquid reduced in salt content, and the other side it is increased and this side is useful if the valuable product is the salt, and not the fluid. In addition, many drugs are inherently ionic chemicals that can be separated by the methods disclosed herein from a liquid in which they have been created. As another beneficial embodiment, the methods and apparatus/system can be configured to separate valuable minerals, such as, but not limited to lithium. Conventionally, the separation of ions and impurities from electrolytes has been achieved using a variety of processes including: ion exchange, reverse osmosis, electro dialysis, electrodeposition and filtering. In conventional reverse osmosis systems, for example, water is forced through a membrane, which acts as a filter for separating the ions and impurities from water. Reverse osmosis systems require significant energy to move the water through the membrane. The flux of water through the membrane results in a considerable pressure drop across the membrane. This pressure drop is responsible for most of the energy consumption by the process. The membrane also degrades with time, requiring the system to be shut down for costly and troublesome maintenance.        
The disclosure of United States Published Patent Application No. 2007/0169625 is incorporated herein in its entirety for all purposes.
United States Published Patent Application No. 2010/0300287 by Roger D. Aines, William L. Bourcier, and Brian Viani for slurried solid media for simultaneous water purification and carbon dioxide removal from gas mixtures provides the state of technology information described below.                Most industrial process for separating CO2 from gas mixtures utilize water as the primary separation media. This is because water provides an extremely large factor to separated carbon dioxide from non-ionizable nitrogen and oxygen. In those processes, the water contains additives that serve to buffer the carbonic acid that forms upon CO2 dissolution, and also to speed the CO2 dissolution process. Typically those additives are amines although in some processes hydroxides (such as NaOH) are used.        
The disclosure of United States Published Patent Application No. 2010/0300287 is incorporated herein in its entirety for all purposes.
United States Published Patent Application No. 2010/0303694 by Roger D. Aines for catalyst functionalized buffer sorbent pebbles for rapid separation of CO2 from gas mixtures provides the state of technology information described below.                Most industrial process for separating CO2 from gas mixtures utilize water as the primary separation media. This is because water provides an extremely large factor to separated carbon dioxide from non-ionizable nitrogen and oxygen. In those processes, the water contains additives that serve to buffer the carbonic acid that forms upon CO2 dissolution, and also to speed the CO2 dissolution process. Typically those additives are amines although in some processes hydroxides (such as NaOH) are used.        
The disclosure of United States Published Patent Application No. 2010/0300287 is incorporated herein in its entirety for all purposes.